One day last summer, I was sitting on a cottage dock and was drawn to the movement of the water on the rocky shoreline. Water and Rocks. One is so fluid, changing, flowing, adjusting and the other so solid, present, impenetrable and they exist together.

One day this winter, I was sitting in a meeting feeling very much like water – gentle and flowing along when I was thunderstruck by rocks both within myself and in others. A word was spoken in the meeting and I felt the external rigidity in that person and the internal rigidity within myself. In the moment it felt as if my water was drained and I was a huge pile of rock and not the solid present kind I enjoyed in the summer but the controlling, tight, constraining kind of rock feeling. Do you know that one??

I’m self aware enough to recognize the rockslide taking place inside me and slowly I could emerge from it to try to make some reconciliation with the other pile of rocks in the room. Later as I still felt the heap inside me I could recognize more deeply what had happened to me and be grateful for the experience.

I’m at a place in my life where I seek to live in a relaxed, flowing stream, trusting that God is caring for me and the Spirit guiding each moment of my day. All is well. I also know that it took a thunderbolt/avalanche kind of work to get me to this place for my starting place was very controlling. I used to be much tighter, only one way to do things, my way. Perhaps polite about it but clearly liked to have things in order around me and to have things done the ‘right’ way. Because I know about control, I recognize it in others and it remains one of my reactive buttons. If I encounter someone, particularly a man who wants to control me, my stuck, rocky side can show up quickly! Usually quietly, but internally I can seethe.

The thunderbolt that dislodged me in the meeting showed me most clearly my own tendency to control, but it also reminded me of my growing strength in living not in the past but in the present moment, relaxed, trusting, in the flow. And I realized something wonderful… water is stronger than rock. That fluid moving water will change and shape the rocks around it. One steady drop of water on a rock will indent it. rocks are smoothed as they’re tumbled in water. Water is stronger than rock.

Yup. Water is stronger than rock. I will continue to grow in being at ease, in patience and gentleness, in compassion. I chose the fluid, trusting life. In the end, it shapes the world.

I still work in a world where I perceive people trying to control me, but I chose to do my own work, be released from the ancient controlling patterns I have been taught and live in the flow of God’s love coming into the world.

How about you? Are you ‘in the flow’?

If you appreciate my sharing – do pass it along to share with another.

Peace to you all

Anne

Contemplative Fire Community Leader Canada